


Richard Papen

by heyphilhecallsmefatjerus



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: AU, Bottom Francis Abernathy, Bottom Henry Winter, Bottoming from the Top, Everyone lives, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Neglected Childhood, Power Bottom, Richard deserves better, Richard is everyone's baby, Richard is my son :(( I love him sm, Service Top, Top Richard Papen, Topping from the Bottom, alternative universe, power bottom Charles Macaulay, power bottom Francis Abernathy, power bottom Henry winter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:55:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29898681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyphilhecallsmefatjerus/pseuds/heyphilhecallsmefatjerus
Summary: Richard Papen is just your normal school boy. Lonely, easily depressed, lowkey socially awkward, secretly scared of strangers, pleasant and, above all, very adorable. The Greek students love him.
Relationships: Camilla Macaulay/Richard Papen, Charles Macaulay/Richard Papen, Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran/Richard Papen, Francis Abernathy/Richard Papen, Richard Papen/Henry Winter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	1. The beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Just a warning: This is an AU, so there will definitely be details that are (a lot) different from how things originally happen in the book. Enjoy^^

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this novel, Richard, in my opinion, is the one that suffered the most. Neglected childhood, indifferent parents, almost 20 years of living inside four walls, no real friends, no real love, he finally escaped from the rural, far-fetch hometown of boredom and colourlessness, chasing a vague dream of, at least, finding somewhere new, with entirely new faces, new people where he could pretend that he had lived a satisfied first two decades of his life which was so worth to be proud of. When finding out about Julian, about his group of five students, five “creeps”, he thought he finally had friends, had someone who truly cared for him, that he had found somewhere he belonged to. 
> 
> Even at the end, I was still not sure what the genuine feeling of those people, Henry, Francis,... was to Richard; did they really consider Richard as a friend; or they simply saw him as a complete outsider who accidentally stumbled upon their path, intervening into a small part of their perfect eccentric life comfortably living with each other’s presence?
> 
> Therefore, I want to dedicate a little of my time and effort, within my humble capability, to writing these lines where Richard is loved and appreciated, where he can find somewhere he calls home, and a group of people he calls family.

Richard Papen is just your normal school boy. Lonely, easily depressed, lowkey socially awkward, secretly scared of strangers, pleasant and, above all, very adorable. 

The Greek students were fascinated by him. He had so many habits that they found immensely strange. Reading newspaper, getting update with latest events occurring around this world which had grown to be too alien from the world where the ancient Greek pervaded for them to even care about, playing crazily stupid video games, smiling at dog and cat videos,... Richard was not many years senior than them, actually, Henry was the oldest of all, but they began to consider the boy as the smallest child in their small, intimate family. It might be because he was the last to be accepted to join the class. It might also just because Richard was kind, silent, and very undemanding, just like an obedient, adorable kid. He never said “No” to their request, he was always ready when they needed help even when they didn’t ask for it. 

At first, they were quite reluctant to welcome this new addition to the class and to the friend circle as a whole. Julian accepted him into his own little academy with a student body consisting of only five students when it was quite late of the school year, almost mid-term during which students were snowed under assignments and mock tests preparing for the mid-term examinations. Besides, the five of them had had rather a long time slowly turning from complete strangers of different social statuses and intellectual levels into friends as closed as family; therefore, at this time of the year, it was indeed not their fault to be unwilling to let this boy fully integrate into their ridiculously small yet closed-knit community.

But Richard broke through all of their restrictions that they both deliberately and unknowingly impose upon him. The boy did try really hard to be accepted. He knew well that these special students had so many and so dramatic differences in their characteristics and manners, but still they were able to form such a tightly-knit group. He knew this fact would be the answer for the question why they hesitated to include him in their daily activities spent with each other, why they chose to continue keeping a lot of things from him. Richard knew it well, so he worked hard to show to this group that he worthed their acceptance and recognition. He was willing to assist them in every task within his ability not only because he wanted their approval, but also because being kind and helping others, being unable to say “No” was something rooted deeply in his nature. Richard was sympathetic, he had this natural gift of contemplating in a multiple of perspectives; maybe it was due to his harsh, neglected rearing which forced him to constantly seek out for care and acceptance of the people around him, yet it was undoubtedly, to a certain extent, his own precious virtue. So while the rest of the university—both lecturers and students—smirked upon them, talked dirty things behind their back and called them “creep”, this boy—Richard—still looked at them with those sparkling huge eyes, giving them the impression of a small child looking at a real-life hero or a respectable adult figure. 

Of course they were aware of Richard’s burning amber eyes almost glued to them whenever they accidentally met on campus, or even when they were standing feets apart before that boy gained Julian’s preference and became their new classmate. Those eyes were too sharp and bright for them to ignore. They knew immediately when the boy was around, because that feeling of being watched was so strong. Yet, unlike the disturbing, clammy feeling you had while being stalking by a pervert, his look was so pure, and filled with so much amazement, curiosity and admiration that you felt like you’re some gods or goddesses landed to the Earth from the clouds far, far above, to bring wisdom and light to humanity. 

Probably Henry was the first one to give up on this struggle between ignoring Richard and accepting him, which might be a big surprise to many people. He was always the most prudent of the five, and it appeared to be Bunny who was the first one since he engaged enthusiastically in conversation with the boy, cracking lame jokes right on the first day they met. Henry himself did not really come up with a cogent reason as to why he gave in so quickly, much more quickly than he did with the other four members of the class. The reason might lie in the gorgeous, shining amber eyes of Richard, in his calm yet handsome, perfect profile face, in his readiness and willingness to care for just five strangers though they just tried to neglect his existence, or in his undemanding, complaisant nature. Whatever it was, Henry knew he wanted his boy to be involved in his life from now on...

About Francis, he could never forget the first time he officially talked to Richard. Literally his first line was: “Cubitum eamus?” which could be roughly translated into English as “Would you go to bed with me?” 

Crazy? To Francis, no. 

But the boy’s reaction was totally out of his prediction. No grimace of disgust, no smirk of unexpectedly fast discovery, no red face of anger or embarrassment... Just a adorably stupid blank face, with a few blinks of those huge eyes before a question ensuing, “What?”

“Nothing.” He snorted. At the same time, in his mind he was saying to himself, “Why does he look at me with such innocence? He can’t be a virgin, no one this attractive can be a virgin at this age...” Indeed Richard was no longer a virgin. He had a girlfriend back in his hometown who, unfortunately, was one of the main reasons he was urged to escape from that land so badly. 

There was this awkward atmosphere of silence between the two of them. For the first time in his life, Francis found himself unable to utter the next flirting word with a man—a gorgeous man, and the twins did not even care to break this silence although it was one of their hobbies to say something sarcastic whenever Francis got into his flirting mode. He would never place his truth in this kind of situation on Henry and Bunny either, since the first one would always be engrossed in some 1000-page or so books, and the last one would always be rambling all type of shit beside his ears. 

Julian finally arrived. “Thank God.” Francis muttered.

Richard threw at him a last weirded-out look, then proceeded to get his seat. Julian told him to sit at the desk behind Bunny’s, and beside Henry’s. Richard was probably a bit scared of Henry, owing to his expressionless solemn face, his husky body with intimidating height, and black formal clothes that he wore all the year round. Henry considered it to be pretty interesting—and cute too—to have a classmate who was a tall boy, only a few inches shorter than him, with those muscles hidden under his thin plain white T-shirt, but still had this respect, almost fear, towards just another guy like him. Filled with such zest, Henry found himself occasionally steal a sidelong glance at the new boy during the lesson, strangely satisfied to see his shining childlike eyes again, glued to the blackboard, attentively listening to Julian’s every word.

After the lesson, the group decided to have lunch together at a small restaurant near the university. Henry saw Richard walking with Bunny’s arm around his shoulders, obviously awkward due to their intimate positions. 

“How’s your first day?” Henry took long steps to stand next to Richard, almost touching his shoulders. Thanks to their two-inch height difference, Henry could see Richard long eyelashes shadowing his amber eyes, making him seem even more obedient and lovely. Richard did startle a bit hearing Henry’s low husky voice so close to him. Of course the boy would be taken aback, no one would ever expect a repressed, unfriendly-looking man like Henry approached you and initiated a conversation with you.

“Um… Good, I think…” Richard looked up at Henry, almost muttered.

Bunny was pretty surprised as well, this bastard on the first day they met did not utter a word, “Old man, this lunch, you join us?”

Henry just nodded.

“Damn, that’s weird. Often you won’t care for anything else but those hecking thick books that can kill people with just a smash.”

Henry frowned, did not want to continue this topic, “Where’re Francis and the twins?”

“Getting the car.” 

“That car can not hold six people.” Henry said, “Richard, come with me.”

“Ah?” Richard’s worried little brain could not catch up with Henry’s ideas.

“I will come with you two!” Bunny’s eyes sparkled as if he had come up with the best idea ever.

Right at that moment, Francis’s car growled loudly, traveling with ridiculously high speed, making a few circles of skid marks on the university campus before pulling over right in front of the three, attracting a large number of students looking at this way. The car window rolled down, revealing a smiling brightly Francis with sunglasses resting on his nose. Meanwhile, the twins were forced to take the back seats, Camilla with an unamused face, and Charles hand on his forehead. 

“It seems like I have come perfectly in time.” Francis placed his sunglasses on his head, winked at the three, or to be more exact, Richard. 

Henry with his cold, expressionless face, pushed Bunny towards Francis’ car rather roughly. “Right in time for Bunny.” He said crossly. 

“What?” Both Francis and Bunny yelled simultaneously. 

“Richard will go with me.” Henry threw at them a brief look, then he turned to Richard, voice much warmer, “Let’s go.”

“Ah, sure.” Richard did not suspect anything or express any opinions. He’d love to ride with Francis, despite many of his weird behaviors towards him throughout this morning, but since Bunny was to get on Francis’ car, and there was no seat left, riding with Henry would be great, too. From his perspective, Henry was definitely the most difficult to get along with in this Greek group, so this would be a great opportunity for Richard to establish a friendship with Henry, as close as those between him and the other of the group.


	2. The scuffle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The twins got into a fight, Henry jokingly told Richard to lend them a hand, didn't know that Richard took it seriously...

Richard was not sure how he had gotten himself into this situation. 

He had joined a party organized by some popular dudes studying Arts and such, and he did not invite the Greek students to come along with him as he had no hope that they would be participating in such a noisy social event. But he soon found out what he thought was wrong. Blankly staring at this tall girl using her hoarse, almost like a man’s, voice to hit on him, Richard took another glass of alcohol—he was too drunk to make out what type of alcohol it was, lifted his head up and poured it directly into his throat. Of course, this proved to be a stupid spontaneous decision, as Richard immediately coughed his head off, was about to collapse on the floor if that girl was not quick enough to catch him. With this close intimate position, the girl finally had the chance to admire the boy’s handsome features under the dim neon lights of the party. He was hideously drunk, his amber eyes were half-shut, his cheeks got rosy, and the trail of alcohol that run from the corner of his mouth down to his chin and neck, then disappeared into his flannel shirt was highly conspicuous. Her glare was getting hot and burning, her hand was about to become unhonest, intending to slip into his shirt, when there was a deafening crash at the main entrance of the host’s house. Both of them startled because of the sound, Richard’s eyes were wide open, staring at the spot around which a large number of people started to gather.

“A drunken brawl?” He heard the girl mumble, breathing her warm, sticky breath into his ear.

Richard was obviously so drunk that his vision was too blurred to process what was really happening at that moment. However, a huge figure in black, totally standing out from the rest of the party with fancy, flashy clothes, immediately caught his eye. 

“Henry?” Richard wriggled out of this girl’s arms, stumbled across the room to reach the figure. 

“Richard, you’re here. We’ve been looking for you.” It was, indeed, Henry. His face softened as he saw the boy coming this way, and his arms spread wide to welcome this drunk, tumbling Richard.

“Oh, really?” The moment Richard touched his arm, he drew back his hand right away. Henry’s arm was so stiff, his strong muscles tightened, as if he was about to unleash his fury and all of his power upon some unfortunate individuals, crushing them to arshes. Henry noticed this subtle nuance in Richard’s action. He promptly draped his arm around Richard’s shoulders, pulling the boy to his chest, causing him to widen his eyes in astonishment. The arm around Richard’s body was so firm and as his face was pressed against the other’s chest, Richard could hardly raise his head up to look at Henry. When he finally managed to do so, he immediately met with those mesmerizing black eyes of Henry behind those thick-lensed glasses peering at him. “Henry?”

Henry opened his mouth to say something, but besides seeing his lips slightly moving, Richard could not make out a word. There was someone, probably some girls, screaming their heart out in the near distance, their sharp, high-pitched screams pierced through Richard’s brain, worsening his headache that was already bad enough under the effects of this party’s cheap alcohol. 

He shot a withering glare at where he believed the sound originated, and caught a glimpse of a slim, familiar figure with gorgeous blond hair. But before his aching brain could recognize who this might be, a ginger girl jumped at her, both hands grabbed her beautiful long hair and pulled it violently. More crashing, screaming as well as swearing ensued, while Richard could feel the strong arm around him intimidatingly stiffened yet again. Another blond appeared from inside of the crowd surrounding the two people who had immersed themselves wholly in the scuffle, and gave the other girl a hard punch against her cheek. The blonde girl did not have much time to breathe though, as a guy also appeared from nowhere. He was probably a friend of the ginger, about 6 feet 3 tall, wearing a tank top that showed off his outsize arms and menacing muscles. His bald head and rugged features, together with a scar running from his left temple to the bridge of his nose did contribute a lot to his threatening appearance. 

“It appears that Charles and Camilla have gotten themselves into real problems.” Henry said bitterly.

Oh, so those blondes were Charles and Camilla, Richard dully thought. “What’s happened?”

“I’m not sure.” Henry signed, “We came here to look for you as we wanted to show you Francis’ country house where we often spend most of the weekend. There were so many people, and these disgusting neon lights would not make anything easier or more pleasant, so we decided to split with a view to getting out of this hell as quickly as possible. But I was away from the twins just for a minute or so, Camilla had somehow gotten in a fight with this girl, both yelling at each other’s face. I don’t know how that ginger could provoke such a reaction from her… You know Camilla is always the most composed among six of us.” Receiving brisk nods from Richard, he smiled a bit, then continued, “Yeah, so I stood here, watching this ridiculous scuffle, and then you showed up yourself.” Henry looked down at the boy clinging on him with gentle eyes, striving to refrain himself from touching his fluffy short hair. 

“Uhm…” Richard hummed. At first he was wondering why Henry would just stand here instead of intervening into the fight, taking sides with Camilla like Charles did, yet after having a closer look at the person who started all of this mess, with her thin and fragile body, Richard scoffed, only Camilla was enough actually. Henry could kill her without intending to do so. 

“Both of their screams are unbearable, really. They drive me mad.” Richard frowned. At that moment he had Charles join into the ‘screaming competition’ too.

“You drank too much.” Henry made an obvious remark, which Richard just dismissively shrugged off. 

Henry gave a chuckle of amusement, “You seem to get far more easily irritated when drunk huh?” 

The other boy raised his eyebrow, “Aren’t they all?” 

Henry grinned, it was the first time Richard could see with his own eyes Henry grinned that broadly—insteading of hearing about it from Bunny’s ceaseless rambling, almost from ear to ear. The man facing him, with his rare gorgeous smile, was so stunning that Richard was frozen in place, not even sure how he should react under this kind of circumstance. Henry pulled him into yet another hug, this time Richard was standing upright; therefore, rather than finding his face awkwardly pressed against the man’s chest, Richard felt Henry’s large hand place on the nape of his neck, gently press his head to rest on that muscled shoulder, until the man’s wet lips almost touch his reddening ears. “Tell me, Richard…” Henry deliberately lowered his voice, which just made it even more beguiling, “Are we important to you?” 

Richard could not think properly with Henry breathing warm air into his ear for every instant, he could only nod jerkily. 

“Then… Would you kill this man for Charles and Camilla?” Richard felt as though Henry was an incubus, captivating him with his breathtaking beauty, offering him the forbidden fruits, and then after gaining his blind trust, tempting him to commit unforgivable acts. Still, knowing well it was a one-way road to a dead end, Richard still let himself immersed in those sugar sweet lines, stumbling into a bottomless pit. 

Obviously, Henry could not get Richard to take part in the affray by simply saying such words. He did not have that intention in the first place, either; he would hold no much hope this boy was really able to fight. Sure, Richard was tall, pretty well-built and such like, but against that 6-foot-something man, Henry didn’t dare to risk throwing a drunk and fragile Richard at him. He simply just wanted to see how the boy would react. 

But nothing today went as Henry wanted. A deafening “smash” sound echoed the whole palatial living room, causing everyone to be frozen in place. No soul ever dared to utter a word, they were all looking at the same spot, eyes widened. One of the blondes—Charles—collapsed on the ground, hand covering his forehead. From his delicate long-fingered hand, a river of crimson liquid pouring out, quickly wetting half of his angelic face. The guy from earlier stood there, hand holding a broken bottle of wine, his face was as pale as a sheet, seemingly because he could not believe what he had done out of anger. Right at the moment Henry was about to be consumed with outrage, a figure flashed in front of his very eyes. It was Richard. He threw himself into that man, jumping upon him so hard that caused a 6-foot-3 man to fall flat on the ground, and started to deliver incessant punches upon his face. The bigger man must have been caught by surprise, or might be too shocked due to his previous violent action to catch up with how quick things had gotten. He just smashed an annoyingly loud girl-like man down to the floor, and now out of nowhere a drunk boy appeared, hitting him real hecking hard in the face. However, he promptly shook his head off all the worries brought about by hitting some stranger’s head with a glass bottle, rose up, and grabbed the drunk boy’s collar. 

The last thing Richard could be cognizant of was the very moment at which he was forcibly pressed down, together with the feeling of a deep, bitter hurt in his back, as if something sharp had just slitted his skin open, and in his face, as this bald man turned into a complete wild animal after each punch. 

God, what’s a night. He thought.


End file.
